


All Up The Seething Coast

by kinodream



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (implied/referenced. not explicit), (the first scene is from Geralt's POV but then it's all Eskel after that), Established Relationship, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Multi, POV Eskel (The Witcher), Substance Abuse, Suicide Attempt, now with 50 percent fewer commas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26912908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinodream/pseuds/kinodream
Summary: “I’mfine,” says Geralt, and he bares his bloodstained teeth as if to prove it. “I was fine before you got here, and I’ll be fine when you leave, too.”“Leave?” says Eskel. “What, you think we’re gonna leave you in Kaer Trolde? Grow up, Geralt.”Geralt scowls at him. “Yeah, you’re gonna leave.”***Or, Geralt goes off the deep end. Eskel and Lambert try to drag him back home.
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Lambert
Comments: 20
Kudos: 88





	All Up The Seething Coast

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Mountain Goats song of the same name, All Up The Seething Coast. 
> 
> Also, if you haven’t played the games: You can choose to act kind of like a more charismatic (and compassionate and Good) version of Netflix!Geralt, or you can choose to act like a dick. Let's say we chose the latter option, for this fic.
> 
> Lastly, I don't wish to deceive anyone looking for explicit Eskel/Geralt/Lambert, here. They're in a relationship, but it's one that's been going on for like, 60+ years, and they're all exhausted and pissed off and traumatized. They're not having sex during the window in which this fic takes place. But they love each other a lot, and that's the focus of the fic, so that's why it's tagged here.

It’s hard to say what the breaking point is, really, or when he reached it, but summer finds Geralt alone in the Skelligan wildlands with few provisions other than a heavy pack of White Gull and one last decoction to keep him going. Roach is long gone. The sky is bright white, spattered with low fog, and Geralt is blessedly drunk enough to stop being worried about how drunk he is. That’s how it’s been, lately.

He hasn’t shown his face in any town, nor even crept in at night to check the notice boards or sieve through villager talk for hints of a job. And that’s fine. Geralt is a Witcher, first and foremost, except he’s not, anymore, which means, perhaps, that’s he isn’t anything.

That line of thought leaves him under a wide pine, leaning against the trunk, and he runs his fingers over its bark. Very little feeling, there.

His last job, months ago ( _years?_ No, months, he’s sure), had ended in a jail cell, and then, by the nightmare of Nilfgaardian court, a public flogging that had left new scars which healed into thick purple stripes across his back. But that hadn’t been the breaking point. He’d crawled out of the city, spent some time in the forest nearby until he was able to stand, to walk right. And he’d thought about going home to Kaer Morhen, even though it was spring. He hadn’t returned for winter. But what would Vesemir say to that, a beaten Witcher slinking back and hanging around the whole year like a lamed horse? 

In the end, he’d used the last of his coin to cross the sea to Skellige, hoping to escape the long, tremulous grasp of his history, but he hadn’t, not really. He brought it with him everywhere, an albatross slung low over his back.

Geralt had followed the coast of one of the small isles off of Faroe, up and down, silent and restless. Didn’t see anyone for a long time. That wasn’t the breaking point, either, though by then he realized he must have passed it already, some time ago.

A long list of failures, really, and responsibilities that he couldn’t keep afloat; Ciri, Yennefer, Dandelion, his crumbling home, his reputation. All the lives he failed to save. All the Witcher children that died in the siege on Kaer Morhen. All of it, a long red mark against him. 

***

When Eskel and Lambert finally find him, he’s curled into an outcropping of rock a few meters from shore. They hear him more than anything else—he’s hidden from view, and silent, except for the slow, slow beat of his heart.

Eskel dives into the water, swims to him. His swords are missing, and his armor is mostly gone: just a black undershirt left, and an unmatched pair of braies fit to a larger man. He’s shivering with cold and sea-spray, and his eyes are black, his skin white.

“What’d he take?” says Lambert, having followed with only a little hesitation.

Eskel leans in, but he can’t smell any potion that he’s familiar with. “One of his own brews, I guess.”

“What, White Gull?” says Lambert, scoffing, and he moves closer.

“That doesn’t blacken the eyes, idiot,” says Eskel. He sinks down next to Geralt, shakes his shoulder. Geralt doesn’t seem to notice.

It’s difficult to bring him back to shore, but they make it work. Haul him onto the boat they’d been sailing. He looks small, laying at the bottom of it.

***

Geralt wakes up after many hours, long before they reach the port at Kaer Trolde.

He doesn’t say anything, just blinks at them and then curls up tight against the mast. Lambert grits his teeth. 

“What the fuck have you been thinking, Wolf?”

Geralt works his jaw for a moment, but says nothing.

“We’re gonna bring you home,” says Eskel. “Sending a letter ahead to Vesemir, at the port. Got any words?”

“You tell him what you wanna tell him,” says Geralt thickly, and then he shuts his eyes.

Eskel doesn’t want to tell anyone anything, truthfully, but it won’t do Geralt any favors to follow that particular instinct.

At the port in Kaer Trolde, he writes, _Found Wolf, be home in time for winter. Brace yourself._ He sends it with a sorcerer who claims a favor in exchange for playing courier.

The port is empty, nothing going back to the continent. Lambert finds them a room at an inn to wait out the storm that's currently blocking any kind of passage northeast. Geralt staggers behind them and then collapses near the fire, shivering all the while. His eyes are still inky black, and there’s no color to his skin. He stares at the wall, insensate, as far as Eskel can tell.

“Why hasn’t that shit worn off yet,” mutters Lambert, but he sounds more worried than annoyed.

“White Gull's probably not helping,” says Eskel. “He’s soaked in the stuff.” He sits down on the wide bed that’s centered in the room. Skelligers like to sleep together in a big pile—a trait they share with Witchers—and it would suit Eskel just fine if only Geralt were under the covers with them. He knows better than to try and move him, though. He was almost completely cold at the coast, but he’s probably more aware now, and he's prone to keeping knives all over his person, which is something Eskel respects about him. Stabbing is a good way to guarantee that you don’t have to teach the same lesson twice. 

Lambert slinks off to get food and returns only after several hours, empty-handed. Eskel catches him by the wrist on the way in. “Where’d you get to?”

Lambert gives him a look. “Doesn’t matter. Anywhere on this fucking island is better than here, with him.”

A rude way of putting it, but secretly, Eskel agrees.

Geralt used to be the one steadying force between them. Lambert is unreliable and usually half-feral, and Eskel’s fine until he gets too deep into his head, and then he makes mistakes with high casualty rates, and so between the two of them they tend to burn quickly through any goodwill they ever manage to accrue. Geralt, though, is solid, or at least, he’s supposed to be. Can take a beating better than anyone, and then he just keeps going. 

Well. That’s over, apparently.

Lambert sits down beside him. They watch Geralt’s chest rise and fall.

“You know anything about those new scars?” says Lambert after a while. He’d done most of the heavy lifting bringing Geralt to shore, so it figures he found a moment to feel him up in the process.

Eskel shakes his head.

“A rack of them, ‘cross his back. From a whip, I think.”

“Fuck,” says Eskel. “What’s he even been getting up to?”

Lambert crosses his arms over his chest, slumps down a little. “What we’re all getting up to. It’s the human's world now, and we’re just dying in it.”

“Very funny,” says Eskel, but Lambert’s right. Eventually, whatever Witchers that are left are gonna have to throw in the towel, retreat to their keeps and then die in them, because humanity’s not getting any more appreciative. Bloodthirsty, maybe, and cruel. Inventive, if he’s feeling charitable, which he isn’t.

At some point, Eskel gets under the blankets and Lambert follows, curls into him. Sleep comes slowly.

When they awake, Geralt is gone.

“Left big fuckin’ scuff marks all down the stairs,” says Lambert. They follow them down to the tavern. Geralt is drinking, though where he got the coin, Eskel doesn’t know.

Lambert strays unwisely close within knifing range, but Geralt isn’t in a violent mood, apparently, or else he sold all his knives, because he just lets himself get dragged back to their room, muttering about replenishing potions.

“You got no potions to replenish, old man,” says Lambert, though he doesn’t sound mean about it.

“In _me,_ ” Geralt slurs out. Eskel sighs.

“Like how you fill the bottles back up with spirits,” he explains to Lambert. “And the potion infuses the alcohol, and then you got a full bottle again.”

“Fucking wonderful,” says Lambert, and this time he does sound a little mean, but at least he leaves off there.

They pull Geralt into bed with them and block him in on both sides. He tries to get up a few times, but he’s clumsy and falls back asleep easily, so they wait it out. Eskel ends up with his hand locked around Geralt’s wrist, which is both thinner and made of a lot more scar tissue than he remembers it being.

“I gotta leave,” Geralt grinds out, thrashing.

Eskel casts an _axii_ and says, “You don’t need to go anywhere.”

Geralt nods and lays back down, quiet.

“I hate that,” says Lambert, looking down at Geralt's vacant expression.

“Me too,” says Eskel softly. 

They’re banking on the idea that once Geralt sobers up, whatever decoction he’s poisoned himself with will wear off, eventually, and he’ll be okay again, but privately, Eskel has his doubts. 

Doubts which Lambert shares, apparently. “We’re assuming whatever he took is an actual Witcher brew,” says Lambert. The room is dark. It’s warm under the blankets. Geralt is motionless between them.

“I know,” says Eskel.

Lambert barrels on, ignoring him. “Like, he puts weird shit in his potions anyway, and he _always_ tries out those old manuscripts he finds. But,” Lambert swallows, his throat clicking, “Who says that’s even what this is? Maybe someone gave him something. Or maybe he just took actual poison.”

Eskel flinches. “Don’t say that,” he snaps.

“So you were thinking it, too.”

Perceptive bastard. “Geralt wouldn’t do that,” says Eskel, trying to convince himself more than Lambert. And then, “Vesemir will know what to do. Whatever it is.”

“Sure,” says Lambert. “And if he decides Geralt’s broken, he’ll just put him down like a sick dog.”

At this, Eskel sits up, leans over Geralt to look Lambert in the eye. “Say that again,” he says, “And I’ll fucking knife you.”

Lambert looks back at him, shaken, though probably less by Eskel's threat and more by the tacit admission hidden in it. Then he turns on his side, away from them both, and mutters, “Try not to take any more pages out of Geralt’s book, while you’re at it.”

Eskel sinks back down against the bed, feeling far worse than he had before Lambert said anything at all.

***

They awake to Geralt vomiting up black sludge. Lambert leaps out of bed, repulsed, and Eskel just goes to find a bucket. They end up propping Geralt against the headboard, bucket in his lap, and leaving the filthy blankets outside the door.

A thick string of it spills slowly from Geralt’s lip. His nose is bleeding, too, a long slow slide that goes into his mouth before dripping from his chin, but it doesn’t seem to mix with the vomit—it just sits on top of it in the bucket, gathering.

“I hate to say it, but we need to get a sorcerer,” says Eskel.

“No fucking way,” says Lambert. “This is a Witcher problem. They don’t know shit about Witcher problems. He just needs to get it all out, and then he’ll be fine.”

“You didn’t seem to believe that last night,” says Eskel.

“Fuck you,” bites Lambert, and then he sinks down in front of the bed, kneeling, like he’s about to meditate. 

That’ll be the day. But it’s a good vantage point, so Eskel kneels as well.

After a very long time, Geralt mutters, “What is this, my funeral?” and peers at them through bloodshot orange eyes. His skin is still pale, but not overdose-pale. Eskel gets up, almost unsteady.

“Yeah, not yet,” he says. Lambert joins him at Geralt’s side.

“Is that all of it?” he asks.

Geralt shrugs, spits some blood into the bucket. “I guess,” he says. Eskel takes it, goes to try and find somewhere to empty it that isn’t gonna poison the locals.

When he gets back, Lambert and Geralt are glaring daggers at each other, and Lambert has a split lip, thick and sticky with clotted blood.

He stalks out the door as soon as Eskel is inside, with a sharp, “You get to deal with him, now,” thrown over his shoulder.

Eskel frowns. “Wanna tell me what the fuck that’s all about?” he says. He brings the new blankets he got over to the bed, starts spreading them out.

“Asshole thinks he’s in charge of me, that’s all,” says Geralt. He’s got a weird note in his voice, almost challenging.

“Cause you’re doing such a great job right now yourself, is that it?”

“I’m _fine,_ ” says Geralt, and he bares his bloodstained teeth as if to prove it. “I was fine before you got here, and I’ll be fine when you leave, too.”

“Leave?” says Eskel. “What, you think we’re gonna leave you in Kaer Trolde? Grow up, Geralt.”

Geralt scowls at him. “Yeah, you’re gonna leave.” He lifts his hand to form an _axii_ , mockingly, and Eskel flinches at the intent behind it.

“Don’t use that shit on me again,” says Geralt, dropping his hand back into his lap. None of his knuckles are bloody. He must have thrown something at Lambert, then, to bust his lip. Eskel looks around for the likely candidate, which is a pewter cup that’s now lodged between the unused wardrobe and the wall. There’s nothing else in throwing range of Geralt, though for some reason, that’s not particularly reassuring.

Eskel considers casting a _quen_ all the same, but decides against it. Too antagonizing. He sits down next to Geralt on the bed, kicks his boots off over the side.

“How are you even funding this little rescue mission?” says Geralt, eventually.

“Sold a bunch of the old shit lying around Kaer Morhen,” says Eskel.

“Fuck, really? Vesemir’s gonna kill you.” It’s the first normal thing Geralt’s said in a while. Figures it’d be brought on by a healthy dose of Fear of Vesemir.

“He’s the one who sold it,” says Eskel, “So I think we’re probably safe.”

Geralt chews on that for a few minutes. “How’d you find me, anyway?”

Eskel looks at him, disbelieving. “Well, it took almost two years, so how the hell do you _think_ we found you?”

“I dunno,” says Geralt. “Did you finally run into a sorceress you could manage to charm?”

“No, asshole,” says Eskel, trying not to grind his teeth. “We trawled the continent until we got lucky and heard about some captain who said he’d taken a Witcher to Skellige. The guy was dead, so we couldn’t even ask if it was you or not. That was six months ago. We’ve been island hopping since then.”

Geralt vacillates between guilt and anger for a second or two before settling firmly on the latter. “It’s not like I asked you to,” he says, scowling.

“Oh, yeah, you just disappeared instead of coming home for winter, and then never took another contract again, and we figured that _wasn’t_ some kind of cry for help.” 

Geralt punches him in the shoulder, hard, but then just sort of curls in on himself and stares at his knees.

“What've you been drinking, anyway, that's fucked you up so bad?”

“Visionary's potion,” he says, still studying his knees.

Eskel blinks. “What the hell _for?_ ” 

Geralt shrugs tersely. “To keep going.”

Fuck, he must have had a _lot_ of it to cause that kind of effect, if it was just a common potion. Eskel blows out a frustrated breath. May well have been on purpose, really. He spends a few moments debating asking outright, but in the end he can’t make himself do it. He’s honestly not certain that he wants to know.

***

Lambert comes back eventually, and he crawls right into bed beside them, his split lip already healed.

“You guys talk?” he says.

“No, we sat in silence and watched the spiders on the ceiling,” says Geralt, which is about as good of an indication as anything that he’s back to feeling like himself.

“Sounds about right,” says Lambert, smiling.

They stay in bed together for the rest of the day, dozing more than talking, and Eskel tries to bask in the presence of his two stupid, cantankerous boys. Lambert doesn’t really make basking easy, as a rule, and Geralt is currently doing his utmost to ruin any kind of good mood by just being incessantly rude and standoffish, but Eskel is going to take whatever the hell he can get.

***

But the next morning, Lambert decides he’s full of questions, and he wants answers more than he wants to keep the peace.

“So why’d you leave?” is the first one he asks, which makes Geralt set his jaw, though he does, at least, answer.

“Job went bad,” he says, and then, at the flat look Lambert gives him, he continues, “Took one in Nilfgaard. Endrega nest. But I fucked up. One of them escaped the sewers, starting attacking. And a human got close while I was fighting it out in the open, and I caught him with my sword. Just a graze, on his shoulder. Shouldn’t have been enough to kill him, but the blade was covered in endrega venom, so it did anyway. Ended up being tried with murder. Fair enough. And then I got lucky, cause they were too afraid to burn me at the stake, so they sentenced fifty lashes, instead.”

Lambert is looking at him, aghast, and Eskel has to swallow down bile.

“Anyway, that was my last contract.” 

He lets that sink in for a moment, before Lambert says, “Wait, your last contract as in, that’s just the last one you did, or your last contract as in, that’s the last one you’re taking?”

“The last one I’m taking,” says Geralt, and then he’s not in the mood to answer any more questions, apparently, because he lays down and pulls a blanket over his head. Eskel and Lambert trade uneasy looks. Vesemir isn’t going to take that well at all.

***

The day after that, Lambert tries another question over a breakfast of some strange, spiced soup. “Why’d you even go to Skellige?” he says, probably aiming for casual and instead landing somewhere closer to insistent.

Geralt gives him a suspicious look, but he answers this one, too. “No Witchers in Skellige,” he says. “Or at least, there wasn’t until you two followed me here.”

Eskel frowns. “But if you didn’t come here to take contracts, then why does it matter if there’s other Witchers or not?”

Geralt stares into his bowl of soup.

***

The storm clears that night, and they book passage on a cargo ship that has two precious passenger rooms. They reserve one and haul aboard their few belongings, packing them into the corner of their rented room.

Bizarrely, it’s full of nets all strung up like spiderwebs. They take them down and make a nest of blankets against the far wall. They’re all laying there, sprawled over each other as the ship casts off, when Lambert says, “Were you trying to avoid us?”

Geralt throws a very baleful, sea-sick look his way, and says tightly, “If you say another word I’m gonna vomit all over this entire fucking room.”

Wisely, Lambert shuts up.

***

The ship lands in Velen, and they buy horses for the long ride back. They’re in the prairies when Eskel blurts out, “Where’s Roach?” and Geralt just shakes his head, looking pained, so Eskel doesn’t press the issue.

That night they make camp just off the road, and they curl around each other for warmth. It’s far too risky to light a fire in No Man’s Land, even for a group of three Witchers. Or two Witchers, maybe. 

If this had been a century ago, Geralt could have just forgone the Path and stayed at Kaer Morhen year-round, teaching the little ones. But there are no more little ones, and Kaer Morhen doesn’t need another ghost haunting the keep. So Eskel wonders what it is, exactly, that they’re heading towards.

***

After another week into their journey, when they’ve passed into White Orchard, Geralt finally begins to speak on his own, without prompting. “I was thinking… I might take up alchemy. Instead of Witchering.” 

Neither Lambert nor Eskel know what to say to that. It sounds impractical, but more importantly, like it would exclude the company of any practicing Witchers.

Destiny-willing, they each have another hundred years before old age slows them enough that monsters finally can catch up. Eskel doesn’t think he can live a hundred years, without Geralt.

The camp is very quiet, that night.

***

They’re nearing the pass to Kaer Morhen, when Lambert says, “Honestly, _fuck_ being a Witcher.”

Eskel and Geralt turn in their saddles to look at him, surprised.

“No, I’m serious,” he says. “We risk our lives every damn day for humans, for a laughable amount of coin, and instead of thanking us they spit as we pass, or throw stones, call us monsters. Why are we doing this, anymore? There’s no legacy to uphold. There’s no reward at the end of it, just a slow, painful, lonely death.” Lambert grinds his teeth, glares down the road.

Geralt looks at him for a long time, like he’s considering something. 

That night, they lounge in front of the fire, Lambert with his head in Geralt’s lap. Eskel sits beside them, watching as Geralt idly strokes Lambert’s hair and stares into the fire. _I’ll not be parted from them_ , he thinks. _I’ll follow them to whatever end._

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in one sitting from midnight to 7 in the morning, in between my second and third bottle of wine while having a nice healthy breakdown, honestly it just is what it is. sorry about that.
> 
> though i guess it got a little more hopeful, by the end. honestly, sometimes it does actually seem like Witchering is just such a horrible, shitty job, that they should just. go be gardeners in white orchard. have some gay sex. i mean, god.
> 
> anyway, yeah i did steal lines from the Return of the King, what of it. that book has some epic ideas about love. and i have not slept. in two days and i have work . harrowingly soon.
> 
> also: i'll never not be inspired by the fact that in TW2 Geralt can stash like... hundreds of throwing knives all over his person and hurl them at enemies. can't believe they cut that in TW3 and the show... we were robbed.
> 
> the potion Geralt drinks is one from TW2 that (if you read between the lines) keeps you alive but fucks up your brain. it seemed fitting. also the quest associated with it is extremely funny and it lives in my head rent-free.


End file.
